Korsbetningen and Valdemar's Cross

Gotland · Sweden · Cemetery

The stone cross asks passers-by to pray for the fallen — beneath the grass 1,800 Gotland farmers still lie in their mail, the heat having made them too foul to loot.

Over the mass grave east of the Visby town wall, a stone cross was raised soon after the battle with a Latin inscription dating the day and asking passers-by to pray for the fallen. The cross still stands. The prayers have stopped. On 27 July 1361 the peasant army of Gotland met Valdemar Atterdag's Danish professional soldiers outside the wall, and the farmers were slaughtered: an estimated 1,700–1,800 men fell, perhaps a quarter of the island's adult male population, while the town gates were kept shut. The dead were tipped into mass graves by Solberga abbey, the place known as Korsbetningen. When the graves were opened from 1905 the skeletons lay in layers almost a metre thick, jumbled together, and — uniquely in Europe — many still wore their mail shirts and gorgets. The summer heat had made the bodies impossible to strip.

FAQ

Where is Korsbetningen and Valdemar's Cross located?

Korsbetningen and Valdemar's Cross is in Gotland, Sweden.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.

Image: VisbyStar · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons